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Made this tonight for dinner! Loved it! I’ve never attempted spaghetti squash and it was great! Love the addition of the turkey too.
Lindsay
OH, THE LAYERS OF DELICIOUSNESS.
LAY-ERSSSS.
You can’t even make this stuff up. These boats consist of spaghetti squash (the stringy-in-a-good-way squash that looks suspiciously similar to spaghetti) tossed around with some sautéed garlic kale, ricotta, lemon juice, salt, and mozzarella, baked right back in its spaghetti squash shell and topped with a super quick-simmer spaghetti sauce with ground turkey, because sometimes we find these things in our freezer and we need to top them with melty cheese to bring them out into the light.
These spaghetti squash lasagna boats are a major weeknight meal win for all the hungry people.
This is all we ate for the last three days before we headed out to the Philippines. Like, five meals in a row because I made them multiple times. You and I know that we don’t play around with serving sizes around here. I have no interest in a plate of three bites of food with some little bubbles of culinary foam on top. My MO is more of the Huge Plate Piled High With Food variety, whether nutritious Winter Bliss Bowls or just a good old burger and fries. But I might have even achieved a new level here – these spaghetti squash lasagna boat miracles were SO HUGE and so filling that even Bjork couldn’t finish one of them. We ended up halving the boats for smaller, more normal-person sized lunches and reserving the full-size boats for only the hangriest of dinner moments.
Here’s how it all came into existence in my mind:
I Want Pasta > How About Spaghetti with Creamy Sauce > Need a Way to Use Frozen Ground Turkey > Maybe Lasagna > Or Healthy Lasagna? > Turkey Lasagna with Creamy Sauce Could Work > I Know – Lasagna with a Butternut Squash Sauce > Google Search Squash Lasagna For Inspiration > Discovery of Cooking Light’s Spaghetti Squash Lasagna > Purchase of All Spaghetti Squashes in a 100-mile Radius > So Many Delicious and Healthy Lunches And Dinners.
That’s all this blog is, really. It’s just me being hungry for pasta all day every day and finding enough variations to keep us afloat for the last 5 years.
Even without any true-carb-pasta, I’ll give this one an honorary position on my favorite pasta list. Spaghetti Squash for the win!
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Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Boats
- Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes
- Yield: 4 HUGE boats (with extra sauce to freeze) 1x
Description
Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Boats – creamy ricotta, spaghetti squash, garlic kale, Parmesan and mozzarella cheese, and a quick simmer tomato sauce. Easy, healthy, and SO delicious!
Ingredients
For the Filling:
- 2 spaghetti squash
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
- 2–3 garlic cloves, minced
- 3–4 cups baby kale
- 1 cup part skim ricotta cheese
- 1 cup shredded Mozzarella cheese
- a pinch of salt and a squeeze of lemon juice
For the Sauce:
- 1 tablespoons olive oil
- 2–3 cloves garlic, minced
- 1 lb. ground turkey
- 1 28-ounce can crushed tomatoes
- 1–2 cups chicken or vegetable broth
- 1 teaspoon salt
- a pinch of Italian seasonings like oregano, parsley, and basil
- a few glugs of red wine and/or a splash of red wine vinegar or balsamic vinegar
Instructions
- Squash: Preheat the oven to 350. Cut the squash in half and scoop out the seeds. Place the squash cut-side up in a baking dish and bake uncovered for 50-60 minutes. Pull the squash strings out with a fork and transfer to a large mixing bowl (be careful since you’ll want to preserve the squash shells to use as the “boats”). The squash strings should look like spaghetti.
- Sauce: Meanwhile, while the squash is cooking, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and saute for 1-2 minutes until just fragrant (not browned). Add the turkey and cook, stirring frequently and breaking the meat apart into small pieces until fully cooked. Add the tomatoes, salt, seasonings, red wine, and vinegar. Simmer for 20 minutes or so (until the squash is done). Add broth to thin out the sauce if needed.
- Filling: Heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the garlic and kale, stirring until the kale is just wilted. Combine the kale in a small bowl with the ricotta, salt, lemon juice, and 1/2 cup of the shredded cheese. Add the cooked spaghetti squash and stir to combine.
- Arrange: Fill the boats with the spaghetti squash mixture and top with tomato sauce and remaining shredded cheese. Bump the temperature up to about 425 and bake for another 10-15 minutes to get the cheese nice and melty. Top with Parmesan, olive oil, parsley, and salt and pepper.
Notes
We were able to reserve about half of the tomato sauce in the freezer for future use, which was awesome.
Nutrition information is for four servings, and it includes half of the sauce.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 1 hour 30 mins
- Category: Dinner
- Cuisine: Italian-Inspired
Keywords: spaghetti squash lasagna, lasagna boats, squash lasagna
Thanks for hanging with us during this crazy return-from-travel-abroad-and-work-on-a-few-too-many-big-projects time, even when it means the posts are a little shorter than usual. I have a chalkboard FILLED with recipes inspired by 15+ days of being away from my kitchen and I cannot wait to get back into the regular swing.
Spaghetti squash is SO good though. I made egg boats with salsa and avos – delicious.
OMG, this is real food porn 🙂
Nom Nom! sent this link to my daughter too. She’s a skinny stick like you but she and her man are trying to eat better.
ahhhhh YUM. I’m making this tonight :)))
Awesome! Hope you like it Ellie!
Hi Lindsay, this is simply genius. Love the idea!! I bet it is super tasty too and won’t even miss the carbs. Adorable presentation. Two thumbs up. I Will be making these. Thank you for sharing!!
Since switching to spaghetti squash over regular squash, I never have missed the carbs either! Truly, they are almost on par, my butt, come to think of it doesn’t miss the carbs either. Win win! I think you nailed that sauce! All the ingredients I love and nothing icky. Actually, there are 3 spaghetti squash sitting in my disastrous garage begging to get used for this!
Thanks Bita! Appreciate that!
If only my freezer contained what was needed for dat’ beauty <3 delightful!
Thanks Brittany!
HOORAY FOR SPAGHETTI SQUASH! Woot woot! The stuffing sounds PERFECT for dinner. I probably would eat all of the turkey before I’d have enough to put in the squash boats!
There was definitely a lot of sauce-bite-sneaking going on before these were assembled.
Love, love, love spaghetti squash! This recipe looks just delightful with all of those layers. YUM!
Yes – right? The creamy squash mixture plus the tangy tomato sauce… such a good contrast.
I’m all about lasagna and these spaghetti squash boats are calling my name.
thanks Nicole! hope you like them!
Yum! Love me some layers as well 😉 looking forward to all the exciting upcoming posts! Welcome back!
Thank you Michelle! 🙂 Glad to be home! Now to just get back in the swing of things and all caught up!
Ok. Those look amazing! I am the kind of girl who goes for real pasta and avoids kale, but these look worth trying. And your posts are almost always longer than mine so no apologies needed.
What can I say – I love words. 😀
Ever since I realized that I could pop an entire spaghetti squash in the microwave for 12 minutes and then have it be done, my life has been forever changed. I make it all the time and it’s so simple and easy! Thanks for sharing this recipe!
Yes I used to do that all the time! For this one, the timing works well because the sauce needs a while to simmer up so I went for the oven vs microwave but love that tip! Thanks Erin!
This recipe may actually make me like squash! Nice recipe!
I hope so!! 🙂
Spaghetti squash is the best! What a fun idea to use it as a boat!
Kari
http://www.sweetteasweetie.com
Thanks Kari!
I make a version of this and put some into 8in square pans and freeze it. Makes a great “I need a quick meal & I don’t have to prep.” My family loves it! I have also taken it to several people who needed meals, works great!
Yes – love the idea of just transferring it to a pan for easy baking / storing!
Can I just say that even if I’m not interested in the recipe (i mean, I am, but my my husband doesn’t like meat in his spaghetti squash), I still read it, because I just love your writing!
Aw, you are so kind! thank you for reading, Brenda! 🙂
Made this tonight for dinner! Loved it! I’ve never attempted spaghetti squash and it was great! Love the addition of the turkey too.
Thanks Lindsay! Love hearing that!!
Lovely looking and quite summerish!
Channeling the summer vibes… we’re so close and yet so far!!
Seriously, YES! This dinner has my name written all over it’s yummy stuffed self!
Hope you like it Tori!
I am definitely bookmarking this recipe, so I can make it soon! Looks great!
Thanks Kristine! Hope you like it!
These lasagna boats are looking so delicious and of course healthy too. Beautiful recipe.
Thank you Kavita!
Love spaghetti squash–tasteful without carbs.
Agree! For some reason I can’t quite do it with creamy sauce, but with tomato sauce it always tastes awesome to me. 🙂
For the sauce, the recipe calls for 1-2 cups chicken broth however I don’t see it ever being added in the instructions? Excited to try this! Looks delicious!
Oh me oh my! I can’t wait to try this! I have dabble in the spaghetti squash arena so this recipe is totally up my alley!
The ingredient list for the sauce in the Spaghetti Squash Lasagna Boats says 1-2 cups chicken or vegetable broth but it isn’t mentioned in the directions for the sauce. I added it to the sauce but the sauce seems a little soupy. I hope I was supposed to do that.